Oscar Mayer, who transformed his family business into one of the the world's largest meat processors, died Monday. He was 95. The fact that most of the public probably did not know that "Oscar Mayer" was a real person -- actually he was the third member of his family to have that name -- was fine with him, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. "Ironically, although Mayer had, perhaps, the most famous name in Madison, many local residents didn't even know he was a real person," the newspaper said. "The company long used a midget, 'Little Oscar,' as its spokesman and the real Oscar Mayer, a tall, dignified and courtly man, rarely sought publicity."
The business was founded by his grandfather, Oscar F. Mayer, a Bavarian immigrant who started his career in 1873 at the age of 14 as a "butcher's boy" in a Detroit meat market. Ten years later Oscar, along with his brothers Gottfried and Max, opened a meat market, according to the Kraft web site. It was one of the first companies to volunteer to join the then-new federal meat inspection program. Oscar F. Mayer died in 1955 and Mayer's father, Oscar G. Mayer Sr., died in 1965.
